Mr. Speaker, words may fail me, and that rarely happens. This bill is despicable. The minister should be ashamed of the claim she makes on the floor of this House, the claim that she is supported by doing consultations, when she explicitly ignored the advice of the expert panel on environmental assessment. It clearly told the government that it has to review all the projects within federal jurisdiction, not keep the Harper architecture of just project review but look at all federal jurisdiction projects, and keep the regulators out of it; the regulatory boards have no role.
Worse, and no one has spoken to this, the government has accepted an amendment from the Senate that would allow chairing of the environmental assessment process by the very regulators that the minister's $1-million expert panel told her to keep out of the process. The minister has weakened the bill by accepting that Senate amendment, and now we will not have time to disclose that to Canadians. This bill should die right now.